Newsweek online poll

Percentages may not total to 100% for each question due to non-responses
	If the election were held today, who would you vote for?  * 4916 web responses
	RESPONSES		WEB	NEWSWEEK Magazine
	Kerry-Edwards		74%	46%
	Bush-Cheney		25%	46%
	Nader-Camejo		0%	2%
	Undecided/Other		0%	6%
	If you vote this year, will it be the first time you have voted in a general election for president?  * 4883 web responses
	RESPONSES		WEB	NEWSWEEK Magazine
	Yes		13%	15%
	No		86%	84%
	Don't know		1%	0%
	Have you made up your mind about who to vote for in the presidential election?  * 4878 web responses
	RESPONSES		WEB	NEWSWEEK Magazine
	Yes		98%	84%
	No		1%	13%
	Don't plan to vote		0%	3%
	Regardless of which presidential candidate you personally support, who do you think is more likely to win in November?  * 4885 web responses
	RESPONSES		WEB	NEWSWEEK Magazine
	Bush		30%	52%
	Kerry		54%	30%
	Don't know		16%	18%
	Compared to past presidential elections during your lifetime, do you see the 2004 election as the single most important election of your lifetime?  * 4894 web responses
	RESPONSES		WEB	NEWSWEEK Magazine
	Single most important		66%	32%
	More important than most others		27%	36%
	About as important as others		6%	29%
	Less important		0%	2%
	Don't know		1%	1%
	If John Kerry is elected president in November, do you think this country would be more vulnerable or less vulnerable to a terrorist attack than it would be if George W. Bush is re-elected?  * 4896 web responses
	RESPONSES		WEB	NEWSWEEK Magazine
	More vulnerable		24%	38%
	Less vulnerable		47%	20%
	About as vulnerable		28%	35%
	Don't know		1%	7%
	Because of Iraq, do you think the military draft is likely to be reinstated if George W. Bush is re-elected in November?  * 4897 web responses
	RESPONSES		WEB	NEWSWEEK Magazine
	Yes, likely		56%	38%
	No, not likely		35%	51%
	Don't know		9%	11%

Republican Stealing Signs falls flat on his face

A Lakewood Republican stealing campaign signs late one night got nabbed when he ran across a low- hanging driveway chain, fell face first onto a pilfered sign and the concrete and knocked himself unconscious.

Randal Wagner, 50, was loaded into an ambulance, treated at Lutheran Medical Center for abrasions and facial cuts and issued a summons.

Wagner, who unsuccessfully tried to steal a "Dave Thomas" congressional sign that evening, had signs for other Democratic candidates in his Toyota pickup, Wheat Ridge police reported.

"I did a very stupid thing," Wagner said Monday, admitting theft of the signs. "I got caught up in the political passions of this highly contested election."

Wagner said that he and his wife, Jan, who was driving their pickup that night, "want to apologize to the people" they have offended.

Bin Laden's exact location is known, says 9-11 panelist

From L.A. Daily News - News

CLAREMONT -- The Pentagon knows exactly where Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan, it just can't get to him, John Lehman, a member of the 9-11 commission, said Thursday.

Lehman's remarks echoed those made Tuesday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who asserted that the al-Qaida leader was alive and operating in the western part of Pakistan.

Bin Laden is living in South Waziristan in the Baluchistan Mountains of the Baluchistan region, Lehman told The San Bernardino Sun after delivering a keynote speech on terrorism at Pitzer College in Claremont.

In the exclusive interview, Lehman noted, 'There is an American presence in the area, but we can't just send in troops. If we did, we could have another Vietnam, and the United States cannot afford that right now.'

'We'll get (bin Laden) eventually, just not now,' he said. Asked how bin Laden was surviving, Lehman said he was getting money from outside countries, such as the United Arab Emirates and high-ranking ministers inside Saudi Arabia."

People Are Human-Bacteria Hybrid ?

Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human. They are bacterial. From the invisible strands of fungi waiting to sprout between our toes, to the kilogram of bacterial matter in our guts, we are best viewed as walking 'superorganisms,' highly complex conglomerations of human, fungal, bacterial and viral cells.

That's the view of scientists at Imperial College London who published a paper in Nature Biotechnology Oct. 6 describing how these microbes interact with the body. Understanding the workings of the superorganism, they say, is crucial to the development of personalized medicine and health care in the future because individuals can have very different responses to drugs, depending on their microbial fauna.

The scientists concentrated on bacteria. More than 500 different species of bacteria exist in our bodies, making up more than 100 trillion cells. Because our bodies are made of only some several trillion human cells, we are somewhat outnumbered by the aliens. It follows that most of the genes in our bodies are from bacteria, too.

Luckily for us, the bacteria are on the whole commensal, sharing our food but doing no real harm. (The word derives from the Latin meaning to share a table for dinner.) In fact, they are often beneficial: Our commensal bacteria protect us from potentially dangerous infections. They do this through close interaction with our immune systems.

'We have known for some time that many diseases are influenced by a variety of factors, including both genetics and environment, but the concept of this superorganism could have a huge impact on our understanding of disease processes,' said Jeremy Nicholson, a professor of biological chemistry at Imperial College and leader of the study. He believes the approach could apply to research on insulin-resistance, heart disease, some cancers and perhaps even some neurological diseases.

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,65252,00.html

Study:Bush supporters Reality Impaired

72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.

These are some of the findings of a new study of the differing perceptions of Bush and Kerry supporters, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and Knowledge Networks, based on polls conducted in September and October.

Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments, "One of the reasons that Bush supporters have these beliefs is that they perceive the Bush administration confirming them. Interestingly, this is one point on which Bush and Kerry supporters agree." Eighty-two percent of Bush supporters perceive the Bush administration as saying that Iraq had WMD (63%) or that Iraq had a major WMD program (19%). Likewise, 75% say that the Bush administration is saying Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. Equally large majorities of Kerry supporters hear the Bush administration expressing these views--73% say the Bush administration is saying Iraq had WMD (11% a major program) and 74% that Iraq was substantially supporting al Qaeda.

Steven Kull adds, "Another reason that Bush supporters may hold to these beliefs is that they have not accepted the idea that it does not matter whether Iraq had WMD or supported al Qaeda. Here too they are in agreement with Kerry supporters." Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing support to al Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said the US should not have, and 61% assume that in this case the President would not have. Kull continues, "To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance, and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq."

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_10_21_04.html

Tenet: War in Iraq WRONG

Tenet called the war on Iraq "wrong" in a speech Wednesday night to 2,000 members of The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan at Lake Michigan College's Mendel Center. He did not elaborate.

Despite proclaiming to be "as forthcoming as I can," Tenet made light of a question about whether or not the United States made an error in committing intelligence to the search for nonexistent WMDs in Iraq rather than exploring terrorism elsewhere.

Tenet apologized for being rude but did not answer the question.

Counterpunch: A Bulletin on the Bush Bulge

"At Each Ear a Hearer"
Bulletin on the Bush Bulge

The scandal of George Bush's earpiece debate cheating device continues to grow.

I just got a look at the full Fox tape of President Bush's May '04 joint news conference with French President Jaques Chirac. In that tape, as in several other tapes I've seen, Bush can be heard seemingly getting prompting from another voice. About 12 seconds into the piece, the leading voice says, "And I look forward to working to" Bush comes in with "And I look workin'And I look forward to workin' to" The verbal slip-up makes it clear that this is no electronic echo or sound synchronization problem.

At another point, about one minute and sixteen seconds into the tape, the leading voice lets out a loud exhale of breath. Bush does not follow suit. There is no preceding voice when a reporter is heard asking a question. Also, at one minute and 28 seconds into this tape, Bush reaches up and manipulates something in his ear, at which point there is a static noise and the sound of a speaker acting up, until he removes his fingers from his ear.

There is no wire going up to his ear, indicating that the earpiece in his right ear is wireless.

CNN.com - Commander relieved of duty in Iraq - Oct 20, 2004

Because her soldiers refused a suicide mission...

Daily Kos :: We are Unbelievably Screwed, Argentina Style Collapse on Way

Daily Kos :: We are Unbelievably Screwed, Argentina Style Collapse on Way

We are Unbelievably Screwed, Argentina Style Collapse on Way
by msaroff
[Subscribe]

Thu Oct 21st, 2004 at 10:22:10 CDT

I've posted here occasionally, and regularly another private discussion board that the US is approaching a tipping point for an Argentina style currency collapse.

Currently, the dollar is at $1.2621:Euro. This is approaching the record low reached in the middle of February of $1.2848:Euro.

Now, we have foreign investors running away from US Treasury notes for the FIRST TIME EVER!!

Bond Sales Feed Worries (requires a login, use uid=wally@trashmail.net PW=wally from http://www.bugmenot.com)

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 By Jonathan Weisman and Ben White The Washington Post

NEW YORK . On Sept. 9, as it must frequently do, the U.S. government turned to Wall Street to raise a little cash, and Paul Calvetti bet that demand for $9 billion worth of long-term Treasury bonds would be "huge."

But at 1 p.m., as the auction opened and the numbers began streaming across his flat-panel screens, the head of Treasury trading at Barclays Capital Inc. slumped in his chair. Foreign investors, who had been voraciously buying Treasury bonds, failed to show up. Bond prices cascaded downward, interest rates rose, and in five minutes, Calvetti, 38, who makes money by bidding on bonds at one price and hoping market demand lets him quickly resell them at a profit, had lost $1.5 million.

"It's amazing," he gasped, after the Treasury Department announced that Wall Street traders, not foreigners, had been left to buy virtually the entire auction. "I don"t think I.ve ever seen this before."

The most recent auction of 10-year Treasury notes may have been a fluke, a momentary downturn in one aspect of the massive world market for U.S. government and private-sector bonds, stocks and other securities . a market so large and diverse that it has long been the world.s safe haven. But a rash of new data, including Treasury Department figures released Monday showing a net sell-off by foreigners of U.S. bonds in August, has stoked debate over whether overseas investors . private individuals, institutions and government central banks . are growingly dangerously bearish on the U.S. economy.




Diaries :: msaroff's diary ::

It is a portentous issue. Foreign governments and individuals hold about half of the $3.7 trillion in outstanding U.S. Treasury bonds, for example, and the government has been heavily dependent on continued overseas bond purchases to finance the roughly $1 billion a day it has to borrow to pay its bills. Foreign lending and investment are also needed to finance the country.s roughly $50 billion monthly trade deficit, while foreign capital has been a key prop to U.S. stock prices.

A turn in overseas attitudes toward the United States could ripple deeply through the economy, depressing the market, raising interest rates and pushing down the value of the dollar.

Also, it would cause interest rates to skyrocket, because the additional interest would be necessary to attract foreign investment.

It could drive down home prices by 10-20%, popping the equity bubble.

Foreign central banks and individuals rushed to finance U.S. government budget deficits over the past three years, buying $19.2 billion in Treasury bonds in 2001, $118 billion in 2002, and $279 billion in 2003. Lending from foreign governments in particular exploded last year . to $109 billion, up from $7.1 billion in 2002.

The fear among economists is that those foreign lenders may grow concerned that their portfolios are too swollen with dollar-denominated assets.

This is complicated by the emergence of the Euro as an alternate reserve currency.

The Chinese . whose Treasury holdings have tripled since 2000, to $172 billion . have already begun buying more Euro-denominated assets, said Rebecca Patterson, a senior currency strategist at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

...

"The U.S. government will always be able to raise money, -- well, at least in the foreseeable future", he said,"The question is, what will you have to pay and who will you get it from?."

...

Desmond Lachman, an international economist at the American Enterprise Institute, writing for the conservative Web site Tech Central Station, cautioned that foreign central banks "now have considerable ability to disrupt U.S. financial markets by simply deciding to refrain from buying further U.S. government paper." (emphasis mine)

...

To John Williamson, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, that is cold comfort. The Chinese and Japanese central banks may maintain their huge reserves for defensive reasons, he said, but a smaller player, like Brazil or Singapore, could try to unload its dollar reserves, triggering a global sell-off. Like a mouse in a circus, even a bit player could cause the elephants to stampede.

"It's absolutely true that it wouldn't be in the interest of the world to do it, but any one country might think, I'll beat the crowd and diversify first," he warned. "I think that.s the more likely scenario."

Here's the scenario.

* Dollar starts sliding precipitously, so foreign investors in US debt require a greater return to offset their increased risk.
* Interest rates spike.
* Housing prices slide, drying up the home equity lines of credit that have fueled out economy.
* People start losing their homes, as the economy contracts, and they cannot find a buyer for their homes.

It's the Argentina crisis, though the US is in a better position because all of its debts are dollar denominated.

How New Electronic Check Law Affects Consumers

How New Electronic Check Law Affects Consumers: "
What can be done about this confusing situation?

Congress should amend the federal Electronic Fund Transfer Act to apply its consumer protections to every check that is processed wholly or partly by electronic means.

Where can I get more information?

For information from Consumer Reports about Check 21 and other payment methods, click here.

For more information about Check 21, see 'Banks Will No Longer Return Original Cancelled Checks,' posted by the National Consumer Law Center, at: http://www.consumerlaw.org/initiatives/check21.shtml.

For the final federal regulations on Check 21, issued July 26, 2004, click here.

Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America recommend seven policies banks and other financial institutions could adopt to improve Check 21 for consumers. Click here to read about these policies."

Robertson: I warned Bush on Iraq casualties, Bush: We're not going to have any

Robertson: I warned Bush on Iraq casualties
President's response: 'We're not going to have any'

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, "We're not going to have any casualties."

Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."

"You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on the CNN show, "Paula Zahn Now."

"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "

Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

Back to Iraq 3.0 Update: My Friend, the Kidnap Victim

    He turned out of the front gate, took the first right -- as     most of us do -- and a car stopped in front of him and a     tailing car pulled in behind him.  Four men with pistols jumped     out and three of them managed to force their way into the car,     putting guns to the heads of John, his driver and his     translator....  We're not sure what all happened during his     captivity, but he was able to persuade his captors that he was     an Australian and a friend to the resistance and not to the     Americans.       http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000827.php     --  Powered by Movable Type Version 3.1 http://www.movabletype.org/   _______________________________________________ B2idispatch mailing list B2idispatch@lists.thestonecutters.net http://lists.thestonecutters.net/mailman/listinfo/b2idispatch  

Back to Iraq 3.0 Update: Bugged Out

    I'm out of Baghdad. I evacuated after we learned of further     threats against journalists. And just this afternoon, upon     landing at Queen Alia International Airport, I learned that     Margaret Hassan, the top CARE official in Iraq, has been     kidnapped. She was taken while driving to work. She's been in     the country working for children's issues and other     health-related causes for more than 25 years... I want to cover     the story, as best I can, and I really don't like leaving my     friends and colleagues behind.  http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000828.php  

Yahoo! News - Kids Pick Kerry to Be the Next President

NEW YORK - Kid power! Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) is the winner, and the rest of the country should pay attention because the vote on Nickelodeon's Web site has correctly chosen the president of the United States in the past four elections.

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

Joe gets up at 6 A.M. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his
morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging
liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His
medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought
to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical
plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid
medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning
breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some
girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.


In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is
properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total
contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what
he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes
is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to
stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to
work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees

because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public
transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a
contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical
benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy
liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's

employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his
employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes
unemployed, he'll get a worker
compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't
think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some
bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some
godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers
who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market

federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and
the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more
money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his

farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is
among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought

for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the
third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home
Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The
house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck
his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on
Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking,
cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe
wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk
show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and
conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout
his day.

Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our
lives!

After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."


--
Posted by lawnorder to A libbie's take on today's events at 10/19/2004 08:16:20 PM

The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket

The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
The agency is withholding a damning report that points at senior officials.

It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on
9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the
report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in
June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence
committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.

"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were
not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being
suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me,
adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the
administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in
terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government
responsible afterward."

When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking
Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and
committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days ago
asking for it to be delivered. "We believe that the CIA has been told
not to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned."

According to the intelligence official, who spoke to me on condition of
anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive
17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been
"stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by
Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the
Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief by
President Bush.

The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specific
than the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointed Sept.
11 commission and Congress.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer19oct19,1,6762967.column?coll=la-util-op-ed

"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at
individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This
report does that," said the intelligence official. "The report found
very senior-level officials responsible."

By law, the only legitimate reason the CIA director has for holding back
such a report is national security. Yet neither Goss nor McLaughlin has
invoked national security as an explanation for not delivering the
report to Congress.

"It surely does not involve issues of national security," said the
intelligence official.

"The agency directorate is basically sitting on the report until after
the election," the official continued. "No previous director of CIA has
ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing a report to the
Congress, in this case a report requested by Congress."

None of this should surprise us given the Bush administration's great
determination since 9/11 to resist any serious investigation into how
the security of this nation was so easily breached. In Bush's much
ballyhooed war on terror, ignorance has been bliss.

The president fought against the creation of the Sept. 11 commission,
for example, agreeing only after enormous political pressure was applied
by a grass-roots movement led by the families of those slain.

And then Bush refused to testify to the commission under oath, or on the
record. Instead he deigned only to chat with the commission members,
with Vice President Dick Cheney present, in a White House meeting in
which commission members were not allowed to take notes. All in all,
strange behavior for a man who seeks reelection to the top office in the
land based on his handling of the so-called war on terror.

In September, the New York Times reported that several family members
met with Goss privately to demand the release of the CIA inspector
general's report. "Three thousand people were killed on 9/11, and no one
has been held accountable," 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser told the paper.

The failure to furnish the report to Congress, said Harman, "fuels the
perception that no one is being held accountable. It is unacceptable
that we don't have [the report]; it not only disrespects Congress but it
disrespects the American people."

The stonewalling by the Bush administration and the failure of Congress
to gain release of the report have, said the intelligence source, "led
the management of the CIA to believe it can engage in a cover-up with
impunity. Unless the public demands an accounting, the administration
and CIA's leadership will have won and the nation will have lost."

CNS STORY: Vatican denies it responded to lawyer seeking Kerry's excommunication

CNS STORY: Vatican denies it responded to lawyer seeking Kerry's excommunication

Kerry Didn't Gay-Bait - He used Mary Cheney to shame Bush for gay-baiting

Dick and Lynne Cheney claim to be outraged that John Kerry mentioned their daughter Mary's sexual orientation (she's gay) in the Oct. 13 debate. Immediately after the debate, Lynne said it was a 'cheap and tawdry political trick.' Her outrage was spontaneous and therefore probably sincere. But the vice president, who spoke at the same press availability, glided past the subject and instead expostulated on the 'whale of a job' the president had done and Kerry's poor record on defense. That suggests to me that Cheney wasn't outraged at all"

Bin Laden is in China

Bin Laden is in China

This confirms Gordon Thomas, a journalist with contacts in the most important intelligence services. The terrorist had reached an agreement with China, which now negotiates its surrender with Bush. It is his greatest electoral trick.

Translated from El Mundo

Gordon Thomas

10/13/04 "El Mundo" -- During the home stretch of the Northamerican elections, Osama bin Laden could prove to be the ace in the sleeve of president Bush. As we speak, Washington is negotiating a highly secretive agreement with Beijing, the Chinese capital, for the eviction of bin Laden from his sanctuary in the turbulent Muslim provinces of China, in the Northwest of the Great Wall nation.

More than five million people, many of them fanatic followers of Osama, live in that region, which can be called one of the most volatile regions of Earth. Thousands of them work for the mafias who specialize in the trafficking of humans and drugs to the West. Last summer, Bin Laden sealed an agreement with the authorities in Beijing, in which he was granted asylum in return for his guarantees that the guerilla war of the Muslim Chinese against the Chinese nation would end.

Over the years, tens of thousands of troops of the Popular Liberation Armee had been sent to the region with the intent to squash the insurgents.

Suicide Mission a sign things are really bleak for ALL troops

Suicide Mission
The meaning of the soldiers’ rebellion in Iraq
by Justin Raimondo

Spc. Amber McClenny’s voice on the answering machine was emphatic and no
doubt more than a little panicked, early Thursday morning, as she
relayed the latest news from Iraq
to her mother:

"Hey, Mom. This is Amber. Real, real big emergency. I need you to
contact someone. I mean, raise pure hell. We had broken down trucks. No
armored vehicles. Get somebody on this. I need you now, Mom. I need you
so bad. Just please, please help me. It's urgent. They are holding us
against our will. We are now prisoners."

Nineteen members of a supply platoon, part of the 343rd Quartermaster
Company

based in Rock Hill, South Carolina, refused to go on a convoy mission

because their unarmored vehicles were unsafe. One soldier described the
mission – a 200-mile journey in a convoy of unarmored vehicles going 40
miles per hour, in which they had a 75 percent chance of being hit—as a
"death sentence." Furthermore, "The fuel was contaminated for the
helicopters," said the grandfather of one of the detained soldiers
. "It would
have caused them to crash. That's why they refused to deliver the fuel.
They saved lives." They took a vote – hey, there’s democracy in Iraq for
you! – and unanimously decided to decline the mission.

This could not have come at a worse time for the U.S. government, as the
Potemkin village of
"liberated" Iraq comes down all around them. They’re already downplaying
it as "an isolated incident." As a Coalition spokesman in Baghdad put it:

"A small number of the soldiers involved chose to express their concerns
in an inappropriate manner, causing a temporary breakdown in discipline."

There’s nothing temporary, however, about the conditions that brought
this on.

Jacqueline Butler of Jackson, Miss., told reporters that her husband,
Staff Sgt. Michael Butler, would not have refused to carry out an order
unless his own life and the lives of his fellow soldiers were
gratuitously put at risk:

"I know that for him to take that drastic measure, they put him in a
no-win situation. I know he ain’t going to jeopardize (his years of
service) unless it was dangerous to his life, a suicide mission."

But that’s what the war against the Iraqi insurgency amounts to: a
suicide mission. I predicted in this space
that our troops in Iraq
would be sitting ducks once the real war, the war of occupation,
commenced, but there is no satisfaction in being right. We are engaged
in a grinding, ultimately futile war of attrition, a Sisyphean
struggle in which
the best we can do is maintain our tenuous position. But lately we are
even unable to do that. This mutiny is the latest signal that we are
headed for a major meltdown: the mighty U.S. military is staring defeat
straight in the face.

The frequency and severity of attacks on U.S. troops has increased,
quadrupling

from 700 in March to 2,700 in August, and the insurgents are getting
bolder. The recent attacks in the heart of the Green Zone
, the
epicenter of the U.S. command structure and the main headquarters of the
Allawi government, have underscored the vulnerability of the American
position and the growing power and reach of the insurrectionists, who
can apparently attack the occupiers with impunity.

While the military authorities are claiming that "no soldier has been
arrested, charged, confined or detained as a result of this incident,"
eyewitnesses say that the Rock Hill 19 were held in a tent at gunpoint.
That’s how we’re going to have to fight this war: with guns pointed not
only at the insurgents, but at our own soldiers.

With a back door draft

in force as a result of extended tours of duty, and the original
rationale for the invasion thoroughly debunked in the public
consciousness, the troops are beginning to realize that they’ve been
had, along with the rest of the country. They came as liberators, and
are being treated like occupiers – while the insurgents use them for
target practice and they have to buy their own body armor
. I’m surprised
they haven’t mutinied, the whole lot of them, long before this.

But with tens of billions being shoveled into Iraq hand over fist, how
is it that our soldiers don’t have body armor, don’t have armored
vehicles, and don’t merit an armed escort when convoying supplies
through enemy-held territory?

The reason is the "transformation
"
of the American military to its new post-9/11 "light and flexible
" mode, designed for
maximum speed and aggressive offensive action. In short, Rumsfeld & Co.
are creating an army designed to suit an ultra-interventionist foreign
policy. The neoconservatives who ginned up this war convinced themselves
that they could do it with less than a hundred thousand troops: all it
would take was a core force of some 50,000 or so
, they
claimed early on, because the Iraqi people themselves would rise up and
hail us as their benefactors. It was supposed to be a "cakewalk
."
When General Eric Shinseki ,
the former Army chief of staff, told them it would take easily
150,000-plus
to
police occupied Iraq, they attacked him

in public, and handed him his walking papers, forcing him into
retirement .

As Seymour Hersh points out in his new book, Chain of Command: The Road
from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
:

"According to a dozen or so military men I spoke to, Rumsfeld simply
failed to anticipate the consequences of protracted warfare. He put Army
and Marine units in the field with few reserves and an insufficient
number of tanks and other armored vehicles. (The military men said that
the vehicles they did have had been pushed too far and were
malfunctioning.)"

In the rush to war, Rumsfeld and his neoconservative advisors were
committed to their "light and lean" model of "flexible" military force
for purely political reasons: it was necessary to get the attack force
in position before the flimsy case for war burst apart at the seams. The
lies they told were so tenuous, the rationale for war so tentative, that
it was necessary to move quickly – there was no time to build up the
kind of invasion force that was up to a protracted struggle against an
indigenous rebellion.

Our elites are still intoxicated by their post-cold war triumphalism,
still chattering about building an American imperium on the British
model: the U.S., they aver, is a "global hegemon
," and the world is now
"unipolar ," with
Washington, D.C., the New Rome, the epicenter of the mightiest empire
the world has ever seen.

Hogwash.

Blinded by their own conceit, the neoconservative ideologues who turned
Iraq into our version of the West Bank are so far removed from reality
that they’re still touting the
"unknown successes" of this war, which the "liberal" news media is
supposedly too "biased" to publicize.

More hogwash.

This is not only a futile war, it is a criminal war, as Abu Ghraib and
the revelations about its origins detailed by Seymour Hersh
have revealed.
The idea was not to "liberate" Iraq, or to democratize it, but to
destroy it, to literally break it apart and reduce it to rubble.

In that, the administration has "succeeded."

Our soldiers are mutinying in Iraq – when will we join them? When will
the American people say "Basta!" "Enough!"? There’s no way to know. But
one thing I do know: if so much as a single one of those refusenik
soldiers is prosecuted – and they are being "investigated" for possible
charges of insubordination, or worse – the American people will rise up
as one to defend them.

If Rumsfeld is smart, he’ll let this one drop, and the memory of it fade
away – unless, of course, this is only the beginning of something much
bigger. In which case he’s in a lot more trouble than he and his
civilian "chickenhawk "
advisors ever thought possible.

UNFIT FOR SERVICE�

New information with regard to the meaning of a special code which appears on George W. Bush�s Air National Guard discharge papers indicates that he was being thrown out of the Air National Guard for failing �to possess the required military qualifications for his grade or specialty, or does not meet the mental, moral, professional or physical standards of the Air Force.� In other words, despite the fact that Bush had an unfulfilled six year Military Service Obligation, he was discharged from the Air National Guard not because he moved to Boston, but because he failed to meet his obligation to maintain his qualifications as an F102 pilot.



The special code is �PTI 961�, and is found[1] in the �Reason and Authority for Discharge� section of Bush�s NGB-22, his �Report of Separation and Record of Service in the Air National Guard of Texas and as a Reserve of the Air Force.�

"

4-Star Plans for Sanchez After Abu Ghraib

4-Star Plans for Sanchez After Abu Ghraib

Trying to buy his silence, Bushies ?

Top administration figures are angling to promote Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who ran detention facilities in Iraq, officials say.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to promote Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former head of military operations in Iraq, risking a confrontation with members of Congress because of the prisoner abuses that occurred during his tenure.

Senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have privately told colleagues they are determined to pin a fourth star on Sanchez, two senior defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said this week.







Rumsfeld and others recognize that Sanchez remains politically "radioactive," in the words of a third senior defense official, and would wait until after the Nov. 2 presidential election and investigations of the Abu Ghraib scandal have faded before putting his name forward.

Top Pentagon strategists do not have a specific four-star job in mind for Sanchez, and the officials conceded that the appointment would probably not occur if Bush were defeated in his reelection bid by Democratic rival Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has made his criticism of the conduct in the war a centerpiece of his campaign.

Among his duties in Iraq, Sanchez oversaw all detention facilities, including Abu Ghraib prison.

Support for the general among the senior-most policymakers in the Pentagon reflects the Bush administration's insistence that the prisoner abuse affair — which began in Abu Ghraib outside of Baghdad and then drew scrutiny to military jails in Afghanistan and at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — was an aberration.

But an appointment would encourage a confrontation in the Senate, where Democrats and some Republicans who would have to approve the nomination have criticized Sanchez's oversight of Abu Ghraib and the conduct of the war.

The end of Republican dominance: the Pottery Barn Rule

"The GOP has no idea what is about to hit them.

If you tune into AM talk radio...it sounds no different than it always has. If you follow the words of leading GOP Senators, you see that it is business as usual.....Sen. Hagel reconfirms his support for Bush, Sen. McCain is standing next to George on Air Force One. Fox and Rush and Tucker and David are all in line, on board and down with the GWB program. Hell, the GOP House just voted in unison in support of Tom DeLay....same old, same old.

What's funny and sad about this is what they don't realize: this is the worst President in the history of the United States. And he has had a GOP Congress and judiciary to do his bidding. At the end of the day, Colin Powell was right: the Pottery Barn rule will be the dominant meme of this election. The GOP broke it, and the GOP owns it.

* Iraq
* Abu Ghraib
* WMD
* the economy
* gas prices
* the flu shots
* Medicare
* lack of election reform
* Health Care premiums
* our National Guard system

You see, there are three weekends till election day. Congress is shut up. Everyone's home working their base...and yet there is something that is becoming absolutely clear about the Republican party this year: the only thing they will understand is a good old-fashioned ass whupping at the polls. And this year, they are going to get one."

Rove Is Said to Have Testified in Inquiry

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 - President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, testified on Friday to a federal grand jury investigating whether it was anyone at the White House who had illegally disclosed the name of a C.I.A. undercover officer to a newspaper columnist, a lawyer for Mr. Rove said.

'He answered fully and truthfully every one of their questions,' the lawyer, Robert Luskin, said."